Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/359

Rh human monster, dwelling in the mountains of Tango, who feasted upon the Japanese, preferring, of course, beautiful virgins. This great red-faced creature, of lusty youth and almost invincible power, lives with his fellow-demons in a great cave palace; their wine-cups are made of empty human skulls; their teeth are tusks and fangs; their heads have short horns, and they subsist chiefly on human flesh, while near by their habitations are heaps of human bones. Eaiko, the hero, brings some famous wine to their palace and drinks with them. Having mingled a sleeping potion with the draught, he slays the demon and restores the captive virgins to their people. This story, it seems to me, is in itself clear evidence that cannibalism was practised in early Japan.

The stories of Yorimasa, the brave archer, who shot the night-beast that disturbed the Mikado's sleep, and Watanabé who cut off the oni's arm, belong to a cycle which illustrates the old Imperial life in early Kioto. These are but examples of a score of folk-lore tales, or cycles of such stories, which in their general features, and especially in their details, throw much light on the history of the people of Dai Nippon. Indeed, what passes for history with the Japanese at the present time, and is supposed to be the story of facts before the fifth century, is probably hardly much better than what could be pieced together from folk-lore itself. The field of early Japanese history invites the investigator and literary constructor. The true history of both the nation and the state cannot be restored, even in its main features, except after a thorough sifting and comparison of the legends in the Kojiki, the poems in the Manyoshiu or Myriad Leaves, the liturgies of the Shinto religion, and all that mass of early fragmentary literature which thus far has been considered beyond the notice of the serious historian.

Very noticeable is the cycle of legends about the underworld In the Kojiki we have, almost as a matter of course, almost as a necessity in human nature, the descent into the Japanese Hades or invisible world, as they call it "The Land of Roots." Izanagi, the first of the male gods who came to the earth, goes down to find his beloved consort, Izanami, and coming back from the fllth and pollution of the lower world and washing himself in the sea, many gods of various